Marcus Greene's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Marcus stood on the porch and counted three people who had waved at him from the sidewalk that week without stopping. Three waves. No visits. His grandmother used to fill this porch with voices until the streetlights came on. She kept two rocking chairs out here, a cooler of sweet tea, and a radio loud enough to reach the corner. She died the summer after the radio went quiet, and the neighborhood went inside with their televisions and never came back out. Marcus wanted them back. He wanted the porch loud again. He had done the easy part. He had dragged out her old rocking chairs and set the cooler beside them. He poured sweet tea for anyone who climbed the steps. People climbed the steps. They drank the tea. Then they left. He watched a woman finish half a cup standing up, thank him, and keep walking. Two chairs weren't enough. One person perched on a rocker felt like a doctor's waiting room. Nobody stayed long enough to tell a story. He measured the porch with his tape. Twenty-two feet across. Room for more than two chairs. Room for a table. Room for something a person could sink into. He drove to the lot at the edge of town where a man built furniture out of a barn. Marcus walked the rows in his white t-shirt and jeans, running his hand along the wood. He picked a rocking chair with wide arms and smooth runners to match his grandmother's pair. He picked a small table with four straight chairs, the kind you could lean your elbows on while the tea sweated rings into the wood. Then he saw the swing. Black-and-white striped cushions, thick chains, a frame built for two people who wanted to talk slow. He paid with money he had been saving for a new roof. Back home he hung the swing from the porch beams himself. He tested the chains with his full weight and heard them hold. He set the table under the front window and lined the four chairs around it. He placed the new rocker beside his grandmother's two, so three rockers faced the street now instead of two. The cooler went at the end of the swing, within reach. He sat down on the striped cushions and pushed off with one foot. The swing moved. The porch looked different from here. It looked like a place a person could stay. By seven that evening a man walking a dog stopped at the bottom step. Marcus lifted the cooler lid. The man climbed up, took a cup, and sat down in one of the table chairs. He stayed. Twenty minutes later a woman with grocery bags took the swing seat beside Marcus and set her bags on the floor. The porch had places to sit now. The harder question was what to play on it.